Patch 5.4 Feature Preview: Connected Realms

Over the years, World of Warcraft players of all kinds have naturally migrated to different realms to play with their friends, find new guilds, strive for Heroic boss kills, search for the most competitive PvP experiences, and otherwise try to find the right place to call home. Over time, these shifts in player population can sometimes create a less-than-optimal play experience for those on less popular realms, making it tougher to find guilds, conquer group content, and get what they’re looking for from the Auction House and in-game economy.

In Patch 5.4, we’re looking to address this with a new feature called Connected Realms. Building on our existing cross-realm technology, a Connected Realm is a set of two or more standard realms that have been permanently and seamless “linked.” These linked realms will behave as if they were one cohesive realm, meaning you’ll be able to join the same guilds and Arena teams, access a single Auction House, run the same Raids and Dungeons, and join other adventurers to complete quests.

Our goal with Connected Realms is to give players on lower-population realms more opportunities to group up, compete, and connect with other players to take on Azeroth’s bigger challenges. That sort of interaction is a big part of what makes World of Warcraft fun, and this feature will help us deliver that experience to even more players.

We’ve prepared a short FAQ to answer a few questions we’re sure you’ll have, and we’re very eager to hear your thoughts and collect further questions in your comments below.

Q. Why are you implementing Connected Realms?
A.As WoW has evolved, we’ve seen players naturally gravitate toward a subset of very active realms, leaving behind lower-populated realms. Due to the massively multiplayer nature of World of Warcraft, certain kinds of gameplay experiences simply aren’t well-suited to a low-pop realm. By allowing players from two or more lower-pop realms to play together, we hope to give more players more opportunities to participate in group-oriented activities, helping to foster a more vibrant in-game community.

Connected Realms also allow us to link populations in a way that’s not disruptive to players, and that doesn’t negatively impact players’ sense of identity and character. Other alternatives such as merging realms would require us to force character name changes if there were conflicts, and could lead to confusion for returning players who’d log in to find their realm missing from the realm list. Some players also feel strong ties to their realm’s name or history, and we don’t want to erase that.
Q. Why implement this now?
A. Our cross-realm technology has continued to evolve since it was first developed for joining players in dungeons. It’s now at a point where we can create seamless worlds made up of multiple individual realms, and we think there are some really positive benefits to that.

Q. How can I tell if someone is on my Connected Realm, but from a different realm?
A. Similar to how we use the (*) symbol next to a player’s name to denote if they’re from another realm in Raid Finder, Dungeons, Scenarios, or a cross-realm zone, we’ll be using a (#) symbol to indicate that someone is part of your Connected Realm, but not your home realm.

Q. Which realms will be connected as Connected Realms?
A. We haven’t decided yet which realms will be made part of a Connected Realm, or which other realms they’ll be connected to, though realms will only be connected to other realms of the same type (e.g. PvE to PvE, PvP to PvP, RP to RP). In the end, we’re considering a number of factors, including Battlegroup, population, and faction balance.

Q. How many realms will make up a Connected Realm?
A. We don’t know how many realms will make up a Connected Realm yet, and it’s likely to differ from Connected Realm to Connected Realm. Our goal is to create a vibrant and fun online experience where you can join guilds, access an active Auction House, and band together to take on group content.

Q. Will Connected Realms have any limitations?
A. There should be no limitations. We want the experience to be seamless, and we expect it work as if you’re suddenly part of a much more active realm.

Q. When will Connected Realms be available?
A. We haven’t yet determined when we’ll be creating the first Connected Realms, but we expect it will be some time after the launch of Patch 5.4.

Anyway, it's a good change. I just don't see the difference between 'connected' and 'merged', looking at the description.

coz of this
"Connected Realms also allow us to link populations in a way that’s not disruptive to players, and that doesn’t negatively impact players’ sense of identity and character. Other alternatives such as merging realms would require us to force character name changes if there were conflicts, and could lead to confusion for returning players who’d log in to find their realm missing from the realm list. Some players also feel strong ties to their realm’s name or history, and we don’t want to erase that."

Merging would mean they need to update the databases. Think of the names of the players/guilds that are repeated from one realm to another. This way they just add the # symbol and they are done with it. Basically to make it easier on them and avoid people having to rename their chars.

So they get to merge realms.... without having to say they are shutting down any realms,... meaning they dodge the bad PR from that. lol.

hey blizzard you fools should have done this YEARS AGO. except ACTUAILLY MERGE REALMS instead of waiting for "new technology" to do it you know... back when you started hemorraging subs because people diddnt want to pay to play on a server thats not stupid dead? yeah...

I hope they add something to balance full/locked realms that have high nightly queues and long log in waits.

And I saw, and behold, a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death; and Hades followed with him. And there was given unto them authority over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with famine, and with death, and by the wild beasts of the earth.

I like the idea of this. HOWEVER, my one and only complaint with the game is that I wish they could implement something in the game to where you do NOT have to be in a group with people from spanish speaking servers (such as Ragnaros). Those are by far the worst people to play with, as they don't understand how to play. The worse LFR/LFD groups I have been in have been with these groups, and I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Anyway, it's a good change. I just don't see the difference between 'connected' and 'merged', looking at the description.

Well, like they said above, if they merged the realms, lets say they merged Ysera and Malfurion, one of those names would have to go. If they chose Malfurion, then people who were attached to that realm name can't have it anymore. And they would have to force name changes onto people, because you can't have two of the same name on a realm.

If they just connect them, then instead of meshing them together into one, theyre, well, connected. It's Ysera and Malfurion, instead of just Ysera with Malfurion players.
And you get to keep your name

I like this change. It's a decent solution for dead servers. I had to transfer my horde alt away from Ravencrest EU because it was dominated by over 90% alliance. There were so few horde players that Orgrimmar was a ghost town even during peak time. The AH was near empty for there were no buyers or sellers.

Kinda glad they've finally released the blog post, been waiting for it for quite a while. While I'm relieved to see they will only merge realms of the same type, a couple of things still concern me. Will heirlooms be cross-connected-realm (as seems to be the case), would like a confirmation on this.

We haven’t yet determined when we’ll be creating the first Connected Realms, but we expect it will be some time after the launch of Patch 5.4.

This annoys me quite a bit. For me, connected realms are the thing I'm looking forward to most out of the announced features, and it worries me that it might still take a lóng time after the 5.4 release before it's applied to all realms. The dying/empty realms issue is one of the main things that is putting me off WoW at the moment.

Overall I find the post to be pretty vague, and I'm hoping some more information will come our way soon.